DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Drawing Objection
Figure 6A is objected to because the beam entering the second Faraday rotator 20a' should be labeled as Pb instead of Pa, and the beam exiting the second Faraday rotator 20a' should be labeled as Pa instead of Pb. Note [0084] and claim 6.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Specification Objections
The specification is objected to for the following issues:
In [0081], both instances of "FIG. 3" should be replaced with "FIG. 6A".
In [0084], line 8, "C" should be replaced with "C' ".
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claims 7 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claim 7 is indefinite because there is insufficient antecedent basis for "the first emission beam" or "the second emission beam". It appears that claim 7 should depend from claim 6 rather than claim 1. Claim 8 is indefinite by dependence from claim 7.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-6 and 9-20 are allowed. Claims 7 and 8 would be allowable if claim 7 is amended to depend from claim 6 as proposed above.
US 2022/0011409 A1 is regarded as the closest prior art of record. In terms of claim 1, '409 discloses a photonic component comprising (see mainly figs. 1 and 2a; note fig. 2a provides details of a single pixel 105 of fig. 1):
at least one photonic chip 11;
wherein the photonic chip includes at least one transceiver circuit comprising at least one laser source ("on-chip laser" of [0025]) for providing a first radiation, referred to as local oscillator 206, to an optical mixer 201 and for providing emission radiation to a coupling device 200, the local oscillator and the emission radiation having a predetermined polarization (TE polarization in the example of fig. 2a, see [0027]), the coupling device being configured to propagate in free space, from a measuring surface, the emission radiation in the form of an emission light beam, to receive, in return, on the same measuring surface a reflected light beam and to guide it toward the optical mixer as reflected radiation having the predetermined polarization, the optical mixer generating a measurement signal by interferometric pulse of the local oscillator and the reflected radiation (see [0027]).
'409 does not disclose at least one optical part, wherein the optical part has a Faraday rotator arranged at the measuring surface of the chip in order to intercept the emission light beam and the reflected light beam, the optical part also having a polarizer, arranged downstream of the Faraday rotator in the direction of propagation of the emission beam, the polarizer configured to allow the transmission of the emission light beam and of the reflected light beam according to a single polarization, the single polarization matching the polarization imposed on the emission light beam by the Faraday rotator. It was already known in the LIDAR art to use a Faraday rotator combined with a polarizer in order to suppress undesired polarizations of reflected light, as exemplified by SE 507936 C2 (see e.g. fig. 2). However, according to [0027] of '409 its coupling device 200 is already highly polarization-selective. Accordingly, there appears to be no motivation or suggestion to add to the '409 device further isolation elements such as in the recited configuration of a Faraday rotator and a polarizer.
Conclusion
The additional references listed on the attached 892 form disclose other examples of LIDAR systems.
Contact Information
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Examiner's direct supervisor: 571-272-2397
Official correspondence by fax: 571-273-8300
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/Michael Stahl/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2874